FURTHER REPLY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 126, 29 May 1937, Page 12

FURTHER REPLY.

REMOVAL TENDER.

DEPARTMENT DEFENDED. MR. MACKLEY SPEAKS OUT. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, this day. A repiy to comments made by the acting-secretary of the Auckland Employers' Association, Mr. I. C. Howard, on his statement concerning the quotation of a Railways Department for a house-to-house removal of the furniture and effects ot a teacher in the employ of the Auckland Education Board, from Howick to "Waihi, was made by the General Manager of Railways, Mr. G. H. Mackley, in an Interview to-day. "My statement regarding the weight of the consignment of household effects referred to was correct," he said. "The Department weighed this furniture, and the actual weight was 3 tons lOcwt. It is consequently useless for Mr. Howard's informant to 'doubt if it were more than two tons.' I also stated that the private carrier who did the work employed five men 10 hours at the forwarding end. Mr. Howard's comment that my statement to this effect is 'ridiculous' ends the discussion so far as I am concerned. It is a case of fact as against opinion. "But if the competing quotations were as far astray in estimating the actual weight and the labour required, as Mr. Howard's comments indicate, the disparity between the quotations is easily understood. '"The load of .'>i tons might certainly have been packed oil one largo furniture van, as claimed by Mr. Howard, but as the tare weight of a van capable of carrying this load is not less than 3 tons lOcwt. the gross load would, of course, have been 7 tons Ccwt. . j Transport Regulations. I "The road across the Hauraki Plains is a class 4 road, with a 4J-ton limit for a four-wheeled vehicle, or limit for a multi-axle vehicle. Therefore, if an attempt had beeh made to take this furniture in one load of a gross weight of 7 tons 6cwt, it would have been a distinct breach of the transport regulations. As the competing quotations, on Mr. Howard's own statement, were based on the assumption that the whole consignment could have been taken in one load, via the Hauraki Plains route, the reason for the difference in quotes is obvious. "The Department s quotation was a fair one for the work undertaken," concluded Mr. Mackley, '.'and as 72 per cent of the Department's household removal work is obtained in open competition on price and service, and is increasing rapidly in all parts of the Dominion, if is also useless for Mr. Howard to comment that 'carrying firms dispute the assertion that householders prefer to use the Department's services.' Once again the facts are in favour of the Department."